Or mean or strange or odd for not buying my 3year old sweets not even as a reward not even if he is 'very very very good'!

[Sails]

I know the consensus will probably be that I am! Sil came round yesterday. Then dh, mil and sil had to go to out and ds1 said I want to come with you. Sil said we'll come back later mummy what sweets does he like? I said I don't really know as I don't buy him sweets! Sil not even if he's good and I said no and she said what if he's really really really good and I said I still don't sorry! Anyway ds1 ended up going with them but I got the distinct impression that sil was shocked even felt sorry for him! Aibu?

ermintrude, you are right - eating sweets is not an intrinsic and valuable element of life nor a vital skill to be learnt. No-one was suggesting it was?!

However, that doesn't explain why you have said that it's DAFT to talk about sweets being 'part of the fun of childhood'. Running through long grass, making sandcastles, painting are all FUN parts of being a child as well. Is your child only allowed to do things that are 'educational'??

We've got a really nice old fashioned tobacconists and sweetie shop in town so I take ds in there occasionally to choose half a dozen of the penny sweets.

Last time he went in he won a whole bloody jar, guessing the number of sweets it contained correctly. I was a bit taken aback but ds told me 'it's the best day of my life, Mummy', bless him. I guess it is pretty amazing when you are five.

He took them into school for show and tell and shared them with his class (I checked with the teacher first).

Easter eggs are part of my culture, some memories are nicer than the sweets. I will always look back with pleasure on Easter egg hunts when I was small. They were fun! I think that parents forget that childhood should be fun-they get so deadly serious about everything! I didn't have a lot of sweets, neither did my DSs but they were not banned. Now they are teens they very rarely eat sweets.If you have small DCs and they don't mix much and don't have older siblings you can control what they eat but as soon as they get out into the world you will have to relax a bit.

dd didn't have any choc or sweets til she noticed she was different then had some. I was really upset with mysepf the first time I rewarded with choc then tried to balance with other rewards - sometimes reward with choc, sometimes strawberries or choosing fruit, sometimes a trip to the park. One of the few things I give myself some limited credit for is that dd eats a balance, not everything and not always and that she is excited by lots of foods. We are biologically programmed to like sweet fatty foods so the odd sweet reward I think is not entirely the reason why children like them. That said, children also cope well with one rule for our family another for another family which is why dd knows she won't be able to scoff biscuits just before meals like her cousins. Also - I have very sweet tooth and my parents denied me chocs when small cos they were worried about my weight. Take from that what you will but just do what feels right for you and your family - I respect most positions on sweets except the " I can't understand why they won't eat well at mealtimes" if they've snacked ten minutes beforehand! Even then, do what you will but don't be surprised by some of the more inevitable consequences. Oh and don't be upset (like I was!) when they ask for a Freddo Frog at the petrol station if they had one there before perfectly reasonable request if you're three. Still said no though - no fuss!

Mine get them occassionally, but it is easier with the first child, and when they're young. When they come back from a party with a bag of goo you can't do or say much!

No you aren't mean. But I think maybe you might find it a bit hard to maintain forever.

Is it your first child op? sorry, had a quick skim of the thread to try and work this out.

I don't think you can really judge how hard it is when your 3 yr old is your youngest child, and the older child comes back from parties, squirrels away food from parties, negotiates treats like UN peace keeper. It is harder the older they get.

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I'd go along with that. I don't want to be the lone campaigner though.

i think Y probably ANBU. but i'm not sure.

i felt very deprived of sweets as a child, we never had them. as soon as i had a bit of pocket money and access to a candy shop, i became a total addict. this led to all sorts of binge eating in my teens.

i remember being so jealous of my friends who had unlimited sweets and biscuits around, but who could have cared less.

so i don't know if they should be a part of daily or weekly life or not, though i think i probably will offer them to my DS as a treat at some stage.

otherwise i'd feel very selfish hogging all the haribo tangfastics.

yes i still love sweets but fortunately i grew to love healthy food and exercise too.

Not weird or mean, as long as you don't get obsessive or smug over it (not saying you are, but there really is nothing worse!).

DD is 20 months and my mum was feeding her chocolate as early as she could without me noticing (literally!) as about 1 yr. DD does have chocolate buttons occassionally, and yes I am ashamed to admit I have used them to soothe an upset from a fall! But I have never bought them personnally, my mum sends DD a bag every now and then and they sit in the cupboard and I forget about them. She has biscuits if we are at a toddler group or they are giving them away free in a supermarket! She has also just learned the word 'cake' .

I can't imagine buying her sweets. I went to a baby fair a few months ago and a woman from one of those music groups offered me some sweets for DD (she was about 1yo) and it was those hideous foam hamburger things! Ewww! She really needed to pick her market better!

my children love those foam hamburger things - but they are around 10.

I think you are being unrealistic if you expect to keep a sweetie ban up for long.

my children spend their own money on sweets when they feel like it. If we are out and about, and I want to buy a treat, I try to be a bit more creative though - raspberries are a bit more expensive if you are in the supermarket, but the chidlren do love them.

YANBU, I think it is totally acceptable to minimise sweets etc at such a young age. Children do not see sweets, chocolate etc as a reward, adults do! We then put that onto children. So a 1 year old is rewarded with a packet of chocolate buttons but in reality it is the adult who sees it as a reward. I don't understand why just because it will get harder to maintain keeping sweets to a minimum means that you shouldn't attempt it all.
My DS will eat anything and is not a fussy eater at all, I put this down to not having anything sweet before the age of 2, when he didn't know any different, and only now having something sweet in social situations such as a party and even then it is kept to a minimum.

he's only 3, there's plenty of time to have things like sweets and so on

i think buying sweets for good behaviour is not the best idea, anyway - i think having them occasionally for no particular reason is probably better, myself

but he has years and years and years of being a child left, and the earlier you start children on very sweet things the more of a taste they are likely to get for them, IMO
you don't have so much of a say in their diet when they are 10, but when they are 3 you can choose to give them only good stuff if you want, and i think it is fine - sensible - to do that

ds has had a little bit of cake at nursery and on his birthday but that's it, if he wants something sweet he has fruit.

i was shocked recently when with some friends from a toddler group who were giving out chocolate buttons to their dcs who practically fought over them! ds just went over to see what the fuss was about then carried on playing. he can have chocolate when he's older.

disclaimer, i don't mean i was shocked because they were allowed chocolate, that's obviously up to the parent and it isn't poison! i was just shocked at how over excited they got when it was produced from someones bag, they're only 16 months which is i think quite young to have such a reaction.

although ds has the same reaction to cheese () so what do i know?

Agree with the person who said it's harder with second or subsequent siblings

ChippingIn, Who mentioned education? . I'd say that running through long grass and making sandcastles are certainly fun, and vital for childhood to have lots of such joys, which are all about freedom, action, creativity and relaxation - not quite sure why you're linking them to eating sweets? I'd rather my DC take their earliest foodie pleasures from healthier stuff so that by the time sweets are unavoidable - which they will be - they can enjoy them, but not more than a juicy strawberry or ripe melon or fresh bread or chunk of good cheese.

We don't reward our DD (3 1/2 years old) with sweets, comics, biscuits etc when she is good, if we did she would rather cost us a lot of money !!!! She gets highly praised for being good, (it is cheaper) and I think more rewarding...

Its hard to judge but I'd guess that I allow my dcs to have an "average" amount of sweets. They are not used as a reward. They certainly did have the occasional packet of chocolate buttons before the age of 3, though. They also had icecream, sweetened yogurts and drinks etc. I'd far rather they have a little sugar than aspartame.

They are now 8 and 5 and we all went to the dentist in half term. No tooth decay at all.

Ermintrude, I'm not sure why you are linking being given any form of sweets to not being given and enjoying "a juicy strawberry or ripe melon or fresh bread or a chunk of good cheese". Sweets and healthy food are not mutually exclusive, that is the whole idea of everything in moderation. In my mind a healthy diet is one where all food is there to be enjoyed in appropriate portion sizes. I wouldn't be any happier with my child being addicted to "good" (as opposed to crap cheese ) cheese either.

It's not so much unreasonable as a little miserable.

I am really surprised that a 3 year old would not be able to comprehend that you can not eat sweets all the time.

I allow my 20 month old to eat chocolate, sweets and cake but often he doesn't want it and he never finishes it. It appears through his food choices that he definitely is regulating his appetite, not me and so he is never greedy.

I think by not exposing a 3 year old to all different foods you are setting him up for a fall when he can buy this stuff behind your back and even if this doen't turn out to be the case why won't you allow him a little indulgence? Where I live I've noticed that these ouright bans by parents are very popular, especially at toddler groups where a biscuit may be offered around along with a bit of fruit. I think that it's another form of competitive parenting where people have made these choices with the misguided belief that it equates to good parenting.

I don't think YABU. In fact I don't see the point in giving babies sweets/chocolate until they know what it is. When they know what they are missing, well then I think it becomes another story.

With DD1, I said that she could have sweets once she had worked out what they were. That happenned sometime between 3 - 4. She is now 5 and really can take it or leave it - sometimes we will put a little in her school lunchbox, and she chooses not to eat it. Once she had worked out what chocolate was and could ask for it, then we relaxed the rule considerably.

However, it is near impossible to apply the same rule with DD2. She had worked out exactly what chocolate was by about a year. She is 2 now and obsessed with the stuff!

I think it works well with first children, but almost impossible in subsequent children (or maybe that's just my experience).

you shouldnt have to bribe good behaviour whether it is with sweets/comics or whatever

but agree a treat is nice and dont see the problem with having the odd sweet/chocolate bar

i dont buy them but get them in party bags/granny etc